Ó Sé delighted that Kerry found their second wind
Kerry manager Tomas Ó Sé and Dara Stack after the Dalata Hotels Group GAA Football All-Ireland U20 Championship final match between Kerry and Tyrone at Croke Park in Dublin. Photo by Seb Daly/Sportsfile.
By Paul Keane
Tomás Ó Sé did something a little different with his Kerry players ahead of the Dalata Hotel Group All-Ireland U-20 football final. He flew them up to Dublin instead of taking the bus or the train.
And for the first 20 minutes or so at Croke Park, he wondered if breaking the habit of a lifetime might just have cost his team.
He felt Kerry were 'flat' and 'leggy' at that stage, and seemingly powerless to prevent holders Tyrone from running up an eight-point lead. With 26 minutes on the clock, Tyrone were still comfortably clear, 1-8 to 0-4.
If somebody had told you at that stage that Kerry would suddenly assume complete control, hold Tyrone scoreless for the next 23 minutes and outscore the Ulster champions by 0-17 to 0-2 for the remainder of the game, you'd have sent them packing.
But that's how the remainder of the game unfolded as Kerry swept to their 11th title at the grade, their first since 2008. Afterwards, manager Ó Sé was apologetic when he arrived in for the post-match press conference long after Tyrone manager Paul Devlin had been and gone.
"I wasn't going to miss any of the craic that we had inside in the dressing-room," he explained with a grin.
"It isn't as if you have a right to be winning these things but it was nice to come out on top. Half way through the first half, it wasn't looking too great. But a few of them kept us in it.
"Evan Boyle had a Trojan first half and kept us in it. That last 12 minutes of the first half, I think we outscored them seven points to one, which was massive. It gave us a platform for the second half and we wanted to focus on moving the ball quickly because it hurt them.
"We hadn't been doing that in the first half. We turned over a pile of ball. I think we turned it over, lost it, 10 times and they scored seven from that.
"I didn't foresee how dominant we would be in the second half. They kept the ball away from Evan, and for our lads to win the breaking ball as much as they did and to score after it, it was brilliant.
"It was great to see and it was as good a performance as I've seen out of any U-20s team that I've been involved with in the last four years."
Kerry captain Paddy Lane mentioned how energised the players were by being paired off with Tyrone again. Kerry lost the 2024 final to Tyrone, as well as a 2025 semi-final.
But it took them a while to get going all the same.
Evan Boyle of Kerry celebrates after his side's victory. Photo by Seb Daly/Sportsfile
"Tyrone caused serious damage," acknowledged Ó Sé. "They could have had a couple of goals in the first half. The ball was going in too easily to their full-forward line. We seemed flat. I don't know, I'd be a man of habits and we flew up this morning and it was different to anything that I've ever done.
"It was still probably the right decision but half way through the first half, I was just thinking, 'I don't know why but we just seem leggy'. We were chasing shadows. They were moving the ball so quickly that we couldn't even get a hand on them and their inside men were doing serious damage.
"I think Killian Dennehy coming in was a huge change. I think Aodhna (Ó Beaglaoich) going into our full-back line tidied it up. But it all comes back to winning primary possession. We did a pile of work on our kick-outs, our own kick-outs, because Tyrone had a full press on for the last number of matches and I think their two big strengths was that, and their defence. As I say, we struggled in the first half but when you moved it with pace, it was the winning of the game."
Ó Sé recalled a difficult period, weeks back when Kerry were defeated by Cork in the Munster group.
"I think it was Mark Fitzgerald that said to me there at the final whistle that the night below in Cork, we got fair abuse after that," said the former Kerry star.
"But it's just the way it is in the county and I accept that. I probably gave a bit of abuse myself down the years so it was probably coming!
Kerry manager Tomás Ó Sé. Photo by Seb Daly/Sportsfile
"But you never know will you get the answer or the end product. I actually think the Munster championship helped us because Cork were a lot more organised, a lot more potent. We got tough challenges in Munster.
"And we got a right battle from Roscommon. I was disgusted that game went to extra time but looking back on it, I'm glad because it kicked us on and we played football in extra time that we hadn't played all year, which you could work on with them going forward."
Tyrone manager Paul Devlin felt a mixture of frustration and pride after the defeat.
"The energy just sapped out of us at the wrong time," he shrugged. "The lads couldn't bounce back when they needed to.
"Our lads, I couldn't have asked any more from them all year. It just didn't work out as well as I expected today but it's a learning curve for them.
"We'll go back to the thing again. We like to take titles along the way surely but the big goal here is developing boys into senior footballers.
"At the end of the day, if we're not getting them through to the next level, what does it count for? We'll just ourselves down and Tyrone will go again."
